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Topic: Hop Drying (Read 9643 times)

So I've been picking hops all weekend and have a pretty nice bounty. I have them in shallow baking pans in the oven. I've been heating the oven to 110F, shutting it off and leaving it for several hours and repeating. Good or not so good idea?

That would probably work fine as would using a food dehydrator. From what I understand the heat can reduce the AA a little bit but I'm not sure by how much. I put my hops on screens and put them in the rafters of the garage for a few days to dry. Either way I think it will be fine.

The only smell is vegetle, not necessarily hop aroma. Like wet grass almost. It's rained so much here in Philly lately I thought this was my best bet. Good to hear the processors dry at 140F. I'll keep it going. Can't wait to make my first beer with them!

The only smell is vegetle, not necessarily hop aroma. Like wet grass almost. It's rained so much here in Philly lately I thought this was my best bet. Good to hear the processors dry at 140F. I'll keep it going. Can't wait to make my first beer with them!

As always, thanks for the help!

Dave

Let us know how these turn out in the beer you brew. Would be nice if they have good aroma.

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Jeff RankertAnn Arbor Brewers GuildAHA Governing Committee BJCP NationalHome-brewing, not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle!

The only smell is vegetle, not necessarily hop aroma. Like wet grass almost. It's rained so much here in Philly lately I thought this was my best bet. Good to hear the processors dry at 140F. I'll keep it going. Can't wait to make my first beer with them!

As always, thanks for the help!

Dave

Let us know how these turn out in the beer you brew. Would be nice if they have good aroma.

Will do. They are Cascade and the cones are huge! I plan to use them first as a big fat dry-hop addition in a Pale Ale.

One of the benefits of growing your own hops is that you can try them more gently than commercial hop growers. There are aroma oils that flash around 100 F and those get lost in commercial drying. If you going to have lots of hops to dry, I recommend building a hop oast that you can set on a box fan, for example.

I build 3 racks from 2x4s and window screen that I can stack on top of each other:

It takes about 3 days to dry the hops with this contraption. Each rack hols about 4 oz of dried hops.

I do think that I'm getting much more flavor and also different flavors out of my home grown Cascade compared to commercially dried ones.

Great topic for us newer brewers. I picked some wild hops about 3 weeks ago here in Colorado Spring that grow along a railroad. Don't know the variety but they are used by a couple of the microbreweries here. When is the best time to pick hops and how do you know if they are too old to pick? I dried mine in a food dehydrator and then vacuum-sealed. They are in the freezer and will be used in a batch of rasberry porter as soon as I pick enough rasberries in my garden.Thanks